Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University

East Lansing, Mich./Zaha Hadid Architects

The new 46,000-square-foot art museum at Michigan State University is sited at the northern edge of the East Lansing, Mich., campus, with a plaza to the west and a sculpture garden to the east. “We approach architecture and landscape as interacting with each other,” says project architect Alberto Barba, noting that the landscape lines of the site determined the building’s form and the patches of pleated stainless steel fins that clad the structure. Although these fins create solid walls in some areas, in others they are installed over glazing and serve as sunshades to limit glare. Inside, three levels of open galleries and education spaces are oriented around a black metal stair and exposed concrete walls that define circulation paths. The linear pattern of the wood floors and recessed lighting reinforce the vocabulary of the pleats on the façade. “Both art and container are part of the same experience for the visitor,” Barba says. The museum will be completed in late Spring 2012.